Women he loved, women he lost
by Bespectacled
Summary: The loves of Tom Branson.  You can totally guess who the last one is, can't you?


_The women he loved..._

_ and the women he lost_

_Roses_

There is the kind of love we do not acknowledge – the childish, playground love, where little boys and little girls hold hands and promise marriage before they know who they are and what it means.

In retrospect we laugh, we do not take it – or ourselves – seriously. At the time, though, there is nothing more real.

It was a tiny village school and they were lucky it was there. Young Tom Branson was proud, determined to become a scholar, to know all there was to know.

Rose Baker almost ruined that for him.

She was older than him, by two months, and she did not let him forget. For two dizzying weeks they held hands in the playground, made promises, even kissed.

Rose Baker discovered Jack Carpenter, and that was the end of that. Jack was older (a year), taller (four inches) and stronger (a black eye, it transpired) than Tom.

Tom was cleverer than him.

(He still is)

_Much Ado_

The first girl he loved – real love, not the immature playground love that he did not consider worthy of mention – was six months younger, and daughter of the local miller.

Ruth Bailey was tall, blonde and near impossible to talk to. Their relationship was tempestuous – one, wiser friend had claimed that they put Beatrice and Benedick to shame. They argued about everything, disagreed, raged at one another before crashing into one another's arms, ridiculously intoxicated by the other's anger.

They both knew that they wouldn't – couldn't – last. They were a disaster, utterly terrible for one another. She would destroy anything she loved – she told him often enough, although he couldn't – wouldn't – believe her.

She screamed at him the day he told her he was to be a chauffeur, she raged and hit him with tiny fists that hurt him more than they should. She told him that he didn't care, that he didn't love her.

He told her that if she believed that, then it may as well be true.

The last he heard of her, she married the miller's son (the miller, now) and barely raises her voice now. Tom is not sure if it is youth or him that caused her rage.

_Original Sin_

A chauffeur's cottage is simultaneously advantage and disadvantage – he had his privacy, but visitation was difficult. In the end, his affair with the ladies maid was no secret.

Not that he minded, particularly, so long as it didn't lose them their jobs.

Her name was Eve, and she took her name very seriously. She was, she whispered in his ear on their first night together, all women; tempter, sinner, mother, sacrifice.

He suspected he was meant to be a simple conquest, but perhaps she enjoyed him, or liked the cottage, or simply felt for him.

She was older than him, though he never dared ask how much. She was ageless, somehow, dizzying and distracting.

They lasted longer than either of them expected – Tom joked that she'd meet her Adam one day, and off they'd go. She laughed, deep and throaty, offered him a puff on her cigarette (the smell of the smoke still reminds him of her to this day).

He was not called Adam. His name was Joseph, and he was the local landlord of the pub, the pub that Tom and Eve frequented. Tom saw it unfold before his eyes, found himself slipping away.

He was the one who ruined it, spending a passionless night with a housemaid who desired him simply because he was Eve's (he is ashamed to say that he cannot recall her name – in subsequent confessions she is Delilah but in truth she was Agnes, and she cared for him more than he would ever know). Eve left him and the house, and helps to run one of the finest pubs in Ireland (so she says, anyway).

Her real name was Mary.

_Roads_

He knows it cannot last.

For now, all they have is longing glances, unspoken affection, regrets and fears. She has not said a word but he knows with certainty that she loves him as much as he loves her.

Since the count he suspects others may know, may have realised. They may presume that there is more than mere wistful desires between them. It may cost him his job, her reputation.

Something will happen, he knows.

Something will force their hands, will trigger something. It will be a love affair, it will be romantic, it will be ridiculous and it will be impossible. Their lives will change, spiral out of control; he will never work again, she will be ruined.

It is difficult to care.

They know the price already. They know that there is no happy ending. To others it sounds as if they discuss politics, but in truth it is plans, it is hopes, it is sweet nothings – it all becomes their knowledge of the price, and the promise that they will pay it.

For now, it is only a squeeze of a hand as she disembarks, the briefest of touches, the shared glances.

In time it will be her stealing to his cottage, it will be promises, it will be heartache, and it will be fear. It will be her in his arms, him waking to find her gone, returned to a house that they will never call home.

He knows he will not love again, the way he loves her. Anyone else will be someone he settles for, someone he can respect, if not love.

He honestly thought he loves before.

Sybil Crawley is all he has ever wanted, all he will ever want, all he will ever need. He is not meant to think like this; she is the young romantic, he is the twenty-year-old politician. He has spent his life grounded in realism – that is why he can see their path so clearly.

It will destroy him, but he will follow it regardless.

_This one has been in my notebook for a while but I've literally just got around to writing it up. I think there are probably a few too many similarities to "Distance" but - well, they were written around the same time, and you won't see the similarities until I've posted the next chapter (haHA) or two anyway... Or I may edit it to high heaven, who knows (I know I should, but I don't)_


End file.
